Jul 312022
 


Edward Hopper Sailing 1911

 

The End of Castle Europe and the First Day of Freedom (Batiushka)
World Economy At Risk Of Deglobalization – IMF (RT)
Tweaking The Dragon’s Tail To Ignite A Terrible Fire With China (Larry Johnson)
New Chinese Aid For Syria Sets Off Alarms In Israel (BD)
Japanese Firms In No Rush To Leave Russia (RT)
Kiev Knew Prison It Shelled Held Ukrainian POWs – DPR (RT)
Zelensky and US To Blame For ‘Bloodbath’ In Donbass – Russia (RT)
British Boats Assist In Transporting Russian Oil (RT)
UN, World Economic Forum Behind Global ‘War on Farmers’ (ET)
Zelensky’s ‘Elite Kraken neo-Nazi Battalion’ Destroyed – Russia (RT)
Gas Levy Could Triple Household Heating Bills In Germany (ZH)
Biden Admin Quietly Builds More Border Wall Amid Migration Surge (JTN)
Covid Reinfection Rate With Paxlovid Is More Than 40%, Not 2% As Marketed (DM)
Italian Court Orders Analysis Of mRNA Vaccines (Muac)

 

 


Victor Orban

 

 

We never tested them

 

 

Check the date

 

 

Body bags

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..the three aims of the Allied Special Operation in the Ukraine [..] have had to be extended..”

The more weapons are poured in, the bigger the territory becomes.

The End of Castle Europe and the First Day of Freedom (Batiushka)

It has now been officially admitted that the three aims of the Allied Special Operation in the Ukraine, the liberation of the Donbass, and the demilitarisation and denazification of the Ukraine, have had to be extended. This is firstly because of the resistance of the Neo-Nazi regime in Kiev to the liberation of the peoples of the Ukraine and secondly because of the support given to that regime by pro-Nazi regimes. Those regimes, known as ‘The Collective West’, are the regimes, representing only 13% of the world population, which have extended the war, both in time and in space.

This change was implicitly confirmed on 28 July by Dmitry Peskov, Press Secretary to President Putin, who declared that ‘the whole of the Ukraine needs to be denazified’. This means that most, or even all, of the Ukraine is going to be liberated, not just the Crimea, the two provinces of the Donbass and the surrounding four provinces of Kharkov, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson and Zaporozhie. These fully- or partly-liberated provinces are being attacked from further away: clearly their liberation will not be complete until those attacks from further away have been stopped, even if that means proceeding right to the Ukrainian border with Poland. (And if NATO countries dared attack the liberated Ukraine from within their borders, then…).

As for the second aim of demilitarisation, which is ongoing in the Ukraine and has reached a high level as a result of the Russian destruction of military hardware and those willing to use it, it too has had to be extended. The extension is necessary because of the military hardware being sent to the Ukraine from the rest of the Collective West, that is, from Non-Russian Europe (just over 50% of European territory) and from the USA. Both have begun sending the Ukraine their weapons for destruction by Russia. However, the third aim, of denazification, both in the Ukraine and, as we explain below, even more in the rest of Non-Russian Europe, is far more complex. Let us explain this through what may at first seem to be rather academic historical considerations concerning English and Western history. Please be patient. There is a point to this.

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You make that sound like it’s a bad thing…

World Economy At Risk Of Deglobalization – IMF (RT)

Russia’s military operation in Ukraine and the subsequent Western sanctions on Moscow might push the global economy into geopolitical fragmentation, the IMF warned in a report published on July 26. “A serious risk to the medium-term outlook is that the war in Ukraine will contribute to fragmentation of the world economy into geopolitical blocs with distinct technology standards, cross-border payment systems, and reserve currencies,” the report states. According to the IMF, such a split would prevent the global community from jointly addressing global problems. “Fragmentation may also diminish the effectiveness of multilateral cooperation to address climate change, with the further risk that the current food crisis could become the norm,” the authors of the report warn.

The report notes that traditional economic and financial risks have been exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine and its repercussions. Such risks currently include the effect of tighter monetary policy, slowing economic growth in China and rising energy prices. However, according to the report, there is “limited evidence of reshoring,” or trade deglobalization, at the moment, and overall, global trade “has been more resilient than expected since the start of the [Covid-19] pandemic,” which can be taken as a positive sign. Still, the IMF predicts that increasingly tight sanctions on Russia will eventually result in a drop in Russia’s oil exports to the global market and a “decline to zero” of Russian gas exports to Europe, which in turn would make “inflation expectations more persistently elevated” across the globe and tighten financial conditions as governments attempt to deal with rising prices.

“In this scenario, the shock would have a widespread impact, as higher global commodity prices and tighter monetary and financial conditions would affect almost all countries, albeit to different extents. Europe would be particularly affected in this scenario, with 2023… near-zero regional growth,” the IMF states. Still, according to analysts, “taming inflation should be the first priority for policymakers”despite the costs of tighter monetary policy, as “delay will only exacerbate [the costs].”

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Pelosi just released a doc stating which places she will visit. Taiwan is not on it.

Tweaking The Dragon’s Tail To Ignite A Terrible Fire With China (Larry Johnson)

The next two weeks could be two of the most dangerous in the history of the United States because it appears Joe Biden and his clueless national security team are bumbling their way towards a showdown with China that is fraught with the peril of war. The Chinese Government now rejects the One China Policy that has been the foundation of U.S./Chinese relations for 43 years. CSIS boils it down nicely: When the United States moved to recognize the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and de-recognize the Republic of China (ROC) in 1979, the United States stated that the government of the People’s Republic of China was “the sole legal Government of China.” Sole, meaning the PRC was and is the only China, with no consideration of the ROC as a separate sovereign entity.

The United States did not, however, give in to Chinese demands that it recognize Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan (which is the name preferred by the United States since it opted to de-recognize the ROC). Instead, Washington acknowledged the Chinese position that Taiwan was part of China. For geopolitical reasons, both the United States and the PRC were willing to go forward with diplomatic recognition despite their differences on this matter. The Chinese are now unyielding on their claim of sovereignty over Taiwan. It does not matter any more that Washington threatens action if China takes any steps to impose its “sovereignty”, China is going to demonstrate its sovereignty. One way it may do this is to deny Nancy Pelosi and any other dignitary from Washington, DC from flying to Taiwan and setting foot on “Chinese territory” without the permission of Beijing.

The United States does not have an embassy in Taiwan. It has a consulate, which is subordinate to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. In other words, any official visit by a U.S. official must have country clearance from China. Got it? What makes the current situation so dangerous is that the Commander of US Forces in the Indo-Pacific region (aka INDOPACCOM) has ordered the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group to the South China Sea as a “show of force.” This is a deliberate act to demonstrate to the Chinese that they have no sovereignty over this territory. The Chinese reaction to this provocation is alarming:

“The Chinese Army urged citizens to “prepare for war” in a social media post Friday that garnered thousands of likes, according to the state-sponsored Global Times. Chinese officials have issued stark warnings of possible conflict should House Speaker Nancy Pelosi follow through with her promise to visit Taiwan in August, pledging a “forceful” response. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) 80th Group Army’s post received over 300,000 thumbs-up on China’s social media platform Weibo within 12 hours “amid high morale among Chinese soldiers,” the Global Times said. “We must bear in mind the fundamental responsibility of preparing for war and charge on the journey of a strong army,” the 80th Group Army posted in a comment that received 8,000 likes”, according to Global Times.

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“..the aid “aims to improve local network infrastructure, especially in those areas hit hard during the Syrian crisis since 2011.”

New Chinese Aid For Syria Sets Off Alarms In Israel (BD)

A recent announcement of Chinese aid for Syria is setting off alarm bells in Israeli security circles. During a July 20 ceremony held in Damascus, an announcement was made that Syria will receive advanced communications equipment from China. According to the official announcement, the aid “aims to improve local network infrastructure, especially in those areas hit hard during the Syrian crisis since 2011.” Signed by Chinese Ambassador to Syria Feng Biao and Chairman of Syria’s Planning and International Cooperation Authority Fadi Salti Al-Khalil, the deal specifies that the equipment will be “delivered in two batches” to the Syrian Communications and Technology Ministry.

Relations between Israel and China are cordial, if somewhat strained in recent years by US pressure on Jerusalem to limit ties with Beijing. So on the face, having China in Syria is not in and of itself a major concern for Israel. But the economic or military improvements China could bring to Syria’s military is a reason for concern. Israeli defense sources told Breaking Defense that the exact type of the communication systems to be supplied to Syria is not clear, but it is expected to be of a type that will fill current gaps in Syria’s military communications network. And, the sources worry, this could be only the tip of the iceberg of Chinese assistance for Syria’s effort to rebuild its armed forces.

“We have indications that Chinese experts visited in recent months some Syrian military installations that were damaged heavily during the civil war,” one source said. “We believe that many [facilities] of the Syrian army will be rebuilt by the Chinese, who have the capability of bringing in thousands of workers to complete the work in the shortest time.” That source also warned that the Chinese may try to sell the Syrians some of their defense systems, which could complicate Israeli operations in Syria. “The Russian-made systems used by the Syrians are almost useless dealing with advanced weapon systems like those used by Israel,” the source noted.

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“..just 5% of Japanese companies that had operations in Russia have left [..] This contrasts with 46% for the UK, 33% for Canada, and 27% for the US.”

Japanese Firms In No Rush To Leave Russia (RT)

Japanese companies are no in a hurry to quit the Russian market, amid fears of being unable to return and having to find new suppliers, the Japan Times reported this week, citing a survey from the statistics center Teikoku Databank. According to the report, within the past month no Japanese companies have announced a suspension or cessation of operations in Russia. Since Russia became subject to numerous sanctions due to its military operation in Ukraine, 74, or about 40%, of the 168 listed Japanese companies working in Russia announced intentions to leave the country. Of these, however, most said they would only halt some form of operation, while a mere five companies said they would withdraw from the Russian market completely.


According to the survey, Japanese companies attributed their reluctance to withdraw from Russia to fears of losing their niche in what they consider an important emerging market and potential difficulties in finding alternative suppliers. Earlier this year, reports emerged that the Japanese government had urged the conglomerates Mitsui and Mitsubishi to retain their stakes in the Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) project Sakhalin-2, which now operates under a new Russian operator, in order to ensure continued LNG flows. Also, a number of Japan’s major automakers, including Toyota, have suspended their activities in Russia over the past several months but have not yet closed their businesses in the country.Western sanctions against Moscow have forced many international companies to quit the Russian market. However, according to a Yale University survey, just 5% of Japanese companies that had operations in Russia have left, which is tied with Italy for the lowest shares in the G7. This contrasts with 46% for the UK, 33% for Canada, and 27% for the US.

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Gonzalo Lira @GonzaloLira1968
Azov Battalion POWs were killed with HIMARS rockets.
HIMARS are targeted by the Americans only.
Americans are providing targeting intelligence.
Americans deliberately targeted Azov Battalion POWs for assassination.
Not their first rodeo. The US did the same in Syria.

Kiev Knew Prison It Shelled Held Ukrainian POWs – DPR (RT)

Kiev knew exactly where Ukrainian prisoners of war were being held when it ordered a strike on the detention facility in Donbass, Eduard Basurin, the spokesman for the army of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), claimed. The attack on the prison near the village of Yelenovka on Friday morning claimed the lives of 53 people, with 75 more injured, according to the DPR. The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that the facility had held members of Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, whose fighters surrendered to Russian and Donbass forces during the siege of the Azovstal steel factory in Mariupol. The battalion is notorious for having fighters with nationalist and neo-Nazi views. “I would like to note that Ukraine itself determined the place of detention of prisoners of war, so they knew exactly where they were kept and in what place,” Basurin told journalists without elaborating.

The DPR’s ombudswoman, Darya Morozova, explained that Ukrainian authorities had previously insisted Yelenovka’s facility be a detention center for Ukrainian prisoners of war. “It was discussed, it was their proposal. That is, they knew perfectly well where the prisoners were being held, at their own request. That’s how cynically they took the lives of 50 of their own officers and soldiers,” she told Izvestia newspaper. In Basurin’s opinion, the prison was targeted “after the Ukrainian prisoners of war began to talk about the crimes that they had committed on the orders of their commanders.” As the orders to conduct those crimes, according to Basurin, had been issued by Kiev, the Ukrainian “political leadership” ordered the strike on the detention center using US-made HIMARS multiple rocket launchers “to hide those crimes about which Ukrainian prisoners of war began to speak.”

“I would like to note that even the lack of ammunition did not stop them from shutting the mouths of those Ukrainian prisoners of war who began to tell how they killed, where they killed and why they killed the civilian population,”Basurin said. He echoed the earlier remarks by DPR head Denis Pushilin, who claimed that the Ukrainians “deliberately” targeted the detention center in order to kill Azov members who had been providing accounts of possible war crimes committed by their commanders. Kiev has categorically denied these allegations and accused “the Russian occupants” of carrying out the strike. According to a statement by the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Facebook, Russia’s aim was to accuse Ukraine of committing ‘war crimes’.

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“..after the Ukrainian prisoners of war began to talk about the crimes that they had committed on the orders of their commanders.”

Zelensky and US To Blame For ‘Bloodbath’ In Donbass – Russia (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is personally responsible, along with the United States, for the fatal shelling of a detention facility in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed on Saturday. According to the ministry’s statement, a missile strike using US-made HIMARS multiple rocket launchers on a prison near the village of Yelenovka killed 50 POWs, while 73 were hospitalized with severe injuries. The ministry added that the remains of 48 Ukrainian prisoners of war were found and extracted from underneath the rubble, while two inmates succumbed to their wounds on the way to a medical facility. “All political, criminal and moral responsibility for the bloodbath against Ukrainians is borne personally by Zelensky, his criminal regime and Washington, which supports them,” the statement reads.


Earlier this week, Eduard Basurin, the spokesman for the DPR’s army, said that Kiev knew exactly where the POWs were being held, because Kiev “itself determined the place of detention.” The DPR official also noted that the prison could have been targeted by Kiev in order to hide atrocities “after the Ukrainian prisoners of war began to talk about the crimes that they had committed on the orders of their commanders.” The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that the facility had held members of Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, whose fighters surrendered to Russian and Donbass forces during the siege of the Azovstal steel factory in Mariupol. Kiev has categorically denied these allegations and claims Russia is responsible for the strike, saying that Moscow sought to blame Ukraine for committing ‘war crimes’. Russia and allied forces have repeatedly accused Ukraine of shelling civilian infrastructure with various heavy weaponry, including HIMARS.

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There’s still money to be made…

British Boats Assist In Transporting Russian Oil (RT)

British-crewed ships have participated in transporting Russian crude oil to Asia, The Independent revealed on Friday, claiming that the “small part” they play in the chain indicates “huge holes” in the Western sanctions on Moscow. A joint investigation of The Independent and the website Global Witness found that at least twice in May, British-crewed vessels based in the Suffolk town of Southwold “sped out from nearby harbours to help transfer Russian oil between vast tankers.” One boat was sent by a British company called STS Marine Transfers to move 14,000 tonnes of Russian fuel oil from one foreign tanker to another, while another, a catamaran called Endeavor that belongs to a company known as Wood Marine, delivered supplies and took the tankers’ crews ashore. The oil transfers took place outside UK territorial waters.

“After refuelling, the two tankers carried 165,000 tonnes of Russian fuel oil – worth more than £165m – onwards to the Persian Gulf and Singapore,” The Independent said. According to the outlet, the transfers “are one link in an international chain” that has helped Russia to quickly shift oil sales to Asia, as European buyers cut back. When approached by the journalists, one of the operators of the British ships said their boats just provide “a taxi service at sea,” and therefore there is no obligation to check where the oil comes from. Another company said it was complying with all international laws and regulations, and had not renewed its contract with cargoes originating from Russia.

“The exact number of transfers of Russian oil that have taken place off Britain’s coast is not known. They are not illegal, and there is nothing stopping British companies from taking part, but they are an indication of huge holes in Western sanctions,” the investigators claim. They added that, as “global shipping is among the most opaque and least accountable industries in the world,” and many things are happening “beyond the reach of individual nation states,” the industry significantly undermines Western countries’ ability to put pressure on Russia. The G7 has said it is aware of the problem and plans to introduce a price cap which would allow Western nations to curb Moscow’s oil revenue. The bloc has also been trying to lure China and India, major buyers of Russian crude, into joining the deal.

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“..High-level Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members within the U.N. system helped create the SDGs..”

UN, World Economic Forum Behind Global ‘War on Farmers’ (ET)

The escalating regulatory attack on agricultural producers from Holland and the United States to Sri Lanka and beyond is closely tied to the United Nations’ “Agenda 2030” Sustainable Development Goals and the U.N.’s partners at the World Economic Forum (WEF), numerous experts told The Epoch Times. Indeed, several of the U.N.’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are directly implicated in policies that are squeezing farmers, ranchers, and food supplies around the world. High-level Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members within the U.N. system helped create the SDGs and are currently helping lead the organization’s implementation of the global plan, The Epoch Times has previously documented.

If left unchecked, multiple experts said, the U.N.-backed sustainability policies on agriculture and food production would lead to economic devastation, shortages of critical goods, widespread famine, and a dramatic loss of individual freedoms. Already, millions of people worldwide are facing dangerous food shortages, and officials around the world say those are set to get worse as the year goes on. There is an agenda behind it all, experts told The Epoch Times. Even private land ownership is in the crosshairs, as global food production and the world economy are transformed to meet the global sustainability goals, U.N. documents reviewed by The Epoch Times show.

As explained by the U.N. on its SDG website, the goals adopted in 2015 “build on decades of work by countries and the U.N.” One of the earliest meetings defining the “sustainability” agenda was the U.N. Conference on Human Settlements known as Habitat I, which adopted the Vancouver Declaration. The agreement stated that “land cannot be treated as an ordinary asset controlled by individuals” and that private land ownership is “a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth, therefore contributes to social injustice.” “Public control of land use is therefore indispensable,” the U.N. declaration said, a prelude to the World Economic Forum’s now infamous “prediction” that by 2030, “you’ll own nothing.”

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He’s on a photoshoot.

Zelensky’s ‘Elite Kraken neo-Nazi Battalion’ Destroyed – Russia (RT)

Russia’s armed forces destroyed the Ukrainian president’s ‘elite assault battalion’ and dozens of fighters from the notorious Kraken neo-Nazi formation, Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said on Saturday. Providing an update on the progress of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, Konashenkov said that on July 28, at the Krasnoarmeysk railway station in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), the Russian military conducted a direct strike “with a high-precision air-based weapon” on a train transporting “an elite assault battalion of the 1st Separate Brigade of the President of Ukraine.” “More than 140 nationalists were killed on the spot. About 250 more militants received injuries of varying severity. All military equipment that was in the echelon was disabled,” Konashenkov stated.

The next day, in the area of Bogodukhov in Kharkov Region, Iskander missiles hit the hangars of a meat processing plant where the Kraken nationalist formation had set up a temporary base, according to the military spokesman. “More than 30 Nazis and 10 units of military equipment were destroyed.” Kraken calls itself a special reconnaissance and sabotage unit under the Ministry of Defense, operating separately from the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Moscow has accused the battalion of committing several war crimes since the beginning of the conflict. Also on July 29, Russian forces destroyed 30 Ukrainian servicemen, a warehouse with rockets for Grad combat vehicles, and military equipment in the settlement of Yasnobrodovka in the DPR.

In the area of Artemovsk, according to Konashenkov, Ukrainian losses amounted to 50 servicemen and eight units of military equipment. “In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed: 261 aircraft, 145 helicopters, 1,644 unmanned aerial vehicles, 361 anti-aircraft missile systems, 4,190 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 772 combat vehicles of multiple launch rocket systems, 3,217 field artillery guns and mortars, as well as 4,573 units of special military vehicles,” the general said.

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“..The levy should be accompanied by a relief package for lower-income households, otherwise the new charge could lead to a “social catastrophe..”

Gas Levy Could Triple Household Heating Bills In Germany (ZH)

Germany plans to introduce a levy for all its gas consumers beginning in October as the government looks to avoid a wave of collapsing gas-importing and gas-trading companies amid record-high natural gas prices, a new bill seen by Reuters showed on Thursday. Russia is further reducing flows via Nord Stream this week, to just 20% of the pipeline’s capacity, days after restarting the link at 40% capacity after regular maintenance. The German government has already intervened to rescue energy group Uniper, Russia’s single largest gas buyer in Germany. Uniper—and many other German gas traders and suppliers—have been reeling from reduced Russian supply and soaring prices of non-Russian gas.

Germany and Uniper agreed last week on a $15 billion bailout package, including the German government taking a 30-percent stake in the company and making more liquidity and credit lines available to the group. Under the plans of the government, all consumers of gas, including households, will have to pay an additional levy, which will go to support Germany’s gas importing companies, which struggle with a lack of Russian gas and sky-high prices of non-Russian alternatives. The details of the bill are set to be announced next month. Households and industrial consumers are expected to pay the levy through September 2024, according to the draft Reuters has seen.

“One doesn’t know exactly how much (gas) will cost in November, but the bitter news is that it’s definitely a few hundred euros per household,” German Economy Minister Robert Habeck was quoted by Reuters as saying on Thursday. Marcel Fratzscher, president of DIW, the German Institute for Economic Research, told Düsseldorf’s Rheinischen Post newspaper that German households should prepare for at least tripled costs of heating on gas. The levy should be accompanied by a relief package for lower-income households, otherwise the new charge could lead to a “social catastrophe,” Fratzscher added.

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Karine Jean-Pierre is ridiculous.

Biden Admin Quietly Builds More Border Wall Amid Migration Surge (JTN)

The Biden administration is quietly funding the completion of a segment of Trump’s border wall in Arizona amid an unprecedented influx of migrants crossing the nation’s border with Mexico. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas authorized Customs and Border Protection to fill gaps in existing barriers near the Morelos Dam outside of Yuma, Ariz., the New York Post reported.The department cited health and hazard concerns should migrants attempt to enter the U.S. via that route, saying the area “presents safety and life hazard risks for migrants attempting to cross into the United States where there is a risk of drownings and injuries from falls. This area also poses a life and safety risk to first responders and agents responding to incidents in this area.”


Some Republicans supported the decision to complete the portion of the border wall. “This may very well be the first time Biden has made a decision based on the actual facts, and the fact is an open border is a dangerous border,” Georgia Republican Rep. Austin Scott told Just the News. In a Thursday press conference, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre denied the administration was completing Trump’s border wall. “We’re not finishing the wall,” she said, per the Post. “We are cleaning up the mess the prior administration left behind in their failed attempt to build a wall.” Record numbers of migrants continue to surge across the southern border as the administration struggles to process the influx.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1553150314206957568

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“..Paxlovid can cause this issue by suppressing patients’ immune systems too early..” Say that again?!

Covid Reinfection Rate With Paxlovid Is More Than 40%, Not 2% As Marketed (DM)

Joe Biden has been re-infected with COVID after taking an anti-viral drug that leaves patients running a 40 per cent risk of flare-up of the virus shortly afterwards. Taking Paxlovid leaves COVID sufferers in danger of testing positive for the virus again very quickly after clearing their initial infection. When Paxlovid came to market in December 2021, studies from Pfizer indicated that only 1-2 percent of patients who took the drug tested positive for Covid again shortly after finishing their dosage. But other experts say the rapid reinfection rate is closer to 40 per cent, and that Paxlovid can cause this issue by suppressing patients’ immune systems too early, meaning their own bodies are unable to get a handle on COVID.


Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a prominent cardiologist and professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University Hospital tweeted: ‘I think this was predictable.’ He continued: ‘The prior data suggesting ‘rebound’ Paxlovid positivity in the low single digits is outdates and with BA.5 is likely 20-40% or even higher.’ In a memo released by the White House, Dr. Kevin O’Connor said that the president will continue to isolate, just like he did when he first tested positive on July 21. Dr. O’Connor also said that the president would not be prescribed Paxlovid again.

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“Know what proteins are present in the vaccine..” Google translation.

Italian Court Orders Analysis Of mRNA Vaccines (Muac)

An Italian court seized by an individual opposed to anti-Covid vaccination has ordered the laboratory analysis of messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines, we learned this Saturday from the plaintiff’s lawyer. The court in Pesaro, near San Marino (east), has commissioned an expert to identify the contents of the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech messenger RNA anti-Covid vaccines . These analyzes will be carried out in September, said lawyer Nicoletta Morante. According to her, this is “a first in Italy, and perhaps in Europe”. The complainant, who has already contracted the disease in the past, is a fifty-year-old working in particular in education, and whose activity in Italy is subject to the vaccination obligation. Refractory, he is under administrative sanctions, according to Me Nicoletta Morante.


In addition to “he asks to establish whether vaccinating people cured of Covid satisfies the good administration of medicine”, he wants to know what proteins are present in these vaccines and whether they contain “excipients for non-human or dangerous use. for health,” according to a summary of the complaint. The messenger RNA treatment allows the cells to reproduce proteins present in the virus – the “antigens” – in order to accustom the immune system to recognize and neutralize it. In support of the civil complaint presented to Pesaro, the lawyer produced the opinion of a medical researcher, presented as an independent virologist, who believes that mRNA vaccines do not fulfill the protective function for which they are injected. . These vaccines, he writes in the complaint, “do not have the declared functional conformation” and the immune response they engender “is ineffective”.

Nanowires

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WEF Ardern

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Nov 142020
 
 November 14, 2020  Posted by at 9:47 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  8 Responses »


Eugène Delacroix Les femmes d’Alger 1834

 

“Never Bet Against Me” (York)
McEnany, Navarro Say Trump Expects To Serve Second Term (ZH)
New Federal Lawsuit Seeks To Toss 800,000 Ballots In Wisconsin (WE)
Trump’s Anti-ISIS Envoy Misled President About US Troop Numbers In Syria (RT)
Joe Biden’s Agenda Is Meant For America’s Unhappy Rich Ladies (Fox)
Biden, Media, CIA: Hunter Biden Emails “Russian Disinformation” (Greenwald)
The Worm in the Machine (Jim Kunstler)
The Winner Of The Most Coveted Henry Kissinger Endorsement Is… Joe Biden (RT)
A Breakdown Of This Strange Moment In US History (SCF)
Justice Alito Speaks Against Pandemic Restrictions, Other Controversies (Turley)
Fauci’s New COVID19 Guidance: ‘Do What You’re Told’ (NYP)
Elon Musk Says He Tested Positive & Negative For COVID19 In Same Day (RT)
Coronavirus Mutation May Be Achilles Heel For Vaccines To Target (RT)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trump is going to need something earth-shattering to turn the election around. Sidney Powell promises exactly that – “I’m going to release the Kraken” -, but let’s see it. The legal team says they have people from inside Dominion on record. Bring them on.

“Never Bet Against Me” (York)

It was definitely an optimistic scenario and one at odds with the current state of the race. Wisconsin has already been called for Joe Biden, who has a lead of 20,546 votes. Arizona has just been called for Biden, with a lead of 11,390 votes. Georgia has not been called yet and is headed for a recount, the hand recount that Trump wanted, with Biden leading by 14,057 votes. North Carolina, on the other hand, looks good for Trump. Although it has not yet been called, the president leads Biden by 73,244 votes.

Then, there are Michigan and Pennsylvania. Both have been called for Biden, who has a 148,382-vote lead over Trump in Michigan and a 54,273-vote lead over Trump in Pennsylvania. There is no way that many votes for Trump could appear, so the president’s hope is for the protests to work — so far, they haven’t — and also, in Pennsylvania, for a judicial victory over the state Supreme Court’s unilateral decision to extend the deadline in which mail-in votes could be received. That is a case Trump should definitely win — the state court completely ignored the legislature’s constitutional authority to make such decisions — but that does not mean it will make much difference in the vote totals.

Indeed, the picture looks bleak for the president. As he spoke on Thursday, GOP strategist Karl Rove, Hugh Hewitt, and this newsletter noted that it is impossible, or all but impossible, for him to come back in enough states to win the election. At one point in the conversation, the president seemed to consider and then quickly reject the idea of losing. “I’m a guy who realizes — five days ago, I thought, ‘Maybe,'” he said, pausing for just a second. “But, now I see evidence, and we have hundreds of affidavits,” referring to the testimonials included in his lawsuits.

Democrats and their allies in the press, of course, are demanding that Trump drop his legal challenges. They are nothing more than a “temper tantrum” by the president and Republicans, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Thursday. On the other hand, many in the GOP would prefer to let the process run its course. But one voice on the Left is also arguing that the litigation should go ahead. “Americans should not worry about these suits,” wrote Jed Shugerman, a professor at Fordham Law School, in a Washington Post op-ed. “Indeed, we should welcome them.” Shugerman said he does not believe the various Trump suits have any merit and indeed thinks they will all be thrown out of court. That, he said, would highlight their shortcomings.

But then: “It is also a bad idea, as a general matter to object to election law litigation. In two years, or four years — and possibly in two months in Georgia — the shoe may be on the other foot. It would look hypocritical to condemn the very idea of challenging an election result now, only to turn around and do so in different (albeit more legitimate) circumstances.” Whatever the case, Trump is forging ahead. When I asked him how quickly he might turn things around, he said, “I don’t know. It’s probably two weeks, three weeks.” He knows the situation. He has heard many people tell him it’s over and time to concede. But at the very least, it is important for his most devoted supporters to see him fighting to stay in office. And he closed with a good-natured warning for everyone who has told him there is no hope: “Never bet against me.”

Sidney Powell: “I’m going to release the Kraken”

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Million MAGA March in DC this weekend.

McEnany, Navarro Say Trump Expects To Serve Second Term (ZH)

Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany has earned even more scorn from her MSM reporter-adversaries over the past couple of days for sharing poll-watcher affidavits calling into question the results in Michigan and other swing states that broke away from the Dems’ “blue wall” back in 2016. Now, after Peter Navarro said earlier that he’s operating on the assumption that there will be a second term for President Trump, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany confirmed in comments to the press on Friday morning that President Trump is operating under the assumption that he’s headed for a second term. “We are moving forward here at the White House under the assumption that there will be a second Trump term…we think he won that election,” Navarro said earlier, adding that any “speculation” about what Joe Biden might do is moot at this point.

A few days ago, Secretary of State Pompeo appeared to crack a joke about a second Trump term, which infuriated the media. According to the press, contesting the vote count isn’t the only strategy for staying in the White House currently under consideration. Trump has reportedly floated the idea of Republican legislatures intervening to pick pro-Trump electors in a handful of key states to deliver him the election in the Electoral College. Still, that story, by the NYT’s Maggie Haberman, one of Trump’s most-hated journos, claimed that Trump “knows it’s over” and that “there is no grand strategy at play”. She also claimed that by sticking with the narrative of victory, Trump is trying to galvanize his supporters for “whatever comes next”.

Some have suggested that the GOP is going along with Trump to ensure that the base comes out to vote in a pair of special elections in January where two GOP senators are facing reelection in Georgia, typically a red state that has seen reams of out-of-state money flow in thanks to Stacy Abrams. Meanwhile, as a “next step”, the NYT claims that Trump plans to seriously discuss running again in 2024. We thought he was going to launch his own digital media company to compete with Fox?

Jack Murphy

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Voting without ID.

New Federal Lawsuit Seeks To Toss 800,000 Ballots In Wisconsin (WE)

A federal lawsuit filed by three voters in Wisconsin seeks to have hundreds of thousands of ballots thrown out in three counties, including in the state’s two largest counties, which are Democratic strongholds. The lawsuit filed on Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Green Bay contends that the absentee voting process in Milwaukee County, Dane County (where Wisconsin’s capital of Madison is located), and Menominee County included “illegal votes” and thus must have their presidential election results invalidated. If the long-shot lawsuit succeeds, it would add the state’s 10 Electoral College votes to President Trump’s ledger.

The plaintiffs focus part of their argument on “indefinitely confined voters.” State law allows those self-reporting as indefinitely confined to vote without a photo ID due to confinement to their residence because of age, physical illness, or disability for an indefinite period of time. This year, the number of indefinitely confined voters increased by a striking rate amid the coronavirus pandemic. Last year, some 72,000 voters said they were indefinitely confined. That number reportedly exploded to 243,000 voters this year.

In March, the Dane County clerk drew a flurry of controversy when he said that state’s order met the threshold for voters to list that they were indefinitely confined, thus bypassing the requirement to provide photo ID. Milwaukee County’s clerk offered similar guidance, citing the pandemic. Republicans quickly cried foul, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court later sided with the GOP and said that the “advice was legally incorrect.” Despite the state Supreme Court’s rebuke, a GOP official told the Washington Examiner earlier this week that voters who listed themselves as indefinitely confined and requested an absentee ballot during the primaries automatically received another absentee ballot for the November election without being asked again to provide photo ID.

The Thursday federal lawsuit contends that in addition to Dane and Milwaukee counties, Menominee also encouraged people to request absentee ballots. Menominee is a small, majority-Native American county that is heavily Democratic and cast 1,303 ballots in favor of President-elect Joe Biden to 278 for Trump. The lawsuit also raises issues with absentee ballot witness signatures and the addition of the ballot witness’ addresses on the ballot envelope, another point Republicans have said they are looking into. A Republican source told the Washington Examiner that observers at the polls noticed that “a lot” of the ballot envelopes had been edited by clerks.

The US Military Has Raided And Seized Servers In Germany Tied To The Dominion Election System

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Craziest story of the day?!

Trump’s Anti-ISIS Envoy Misled President About US Troop Numbers In Syria (RT)

When President Donald Trump ordered all but a few hundred US troops withdrawn from Syria, his own diplomats hid the true number of American forces from the president, envoy Jim Jeffrey has revealed in a new interview. “We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there,” Jeffrey, envoy to the global coalition against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) told Defense One on Thursday. Jeffrey added that the actual number of troops in northeastern Syria is “a lot more” than the 200-400 that Trump agreed to leave behind last year. Trump’s withdrawal appeared to make good on his campaign-trail promise to extricate the US from its “forever wars” in the Middle East.

Trump, who referred to Syria in 2018 as “sand and death,” angered a host of Pentagon chiefs and diplomats when he announced the near-total pullout from the country last October. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned in protest when Trump first announced withdrawal plans in 2018, and Jeffrey said on Thursday that the decision was “the most controversial thing in my fifty years in government.” Jeffrey’s predecessor, Brett McGurk, also handed in his notice when Trump revealed the pullout. Taking over from McGurk, Jeffrey and his team routinely misled the president to ensure that “there was never a Syria withdrawal.” Even before he signed up to work for the Trump administration, Jeffrey’s opposition to the president was well known.

Shortly after Trump was named as the Republican candidate in 2016, Jeffrey signed a letter declaring that the businessman and TV host “would be the most reckless president in American history.” The letter’s other signatories included a host of Bush administration security officials, who helped shape the policies that destabilized the Middle East and gave rise to Islamic State. Despite his open and secret opposition to Trump’s policies, Jeffrey told Defense One that the president’s “modest” approach to the Middle East has yielded better results than George Bush’s military interventionism or Barack Obama’s apologetic overtures to Muslim leaders while arming extremist militias in Syria. Trump, by contrast, has managed to put together a political alliance between Israel and a number of Gulf states, while maintaining relations with Iraq and focusing pressure on Iran. Conflict in the region is frozen in a “stalemate,” Jeffrey noted. “Nobody really wants to see President Trump go, among all our allies,” he said. “The truth is President Trump and his policies are quite popular among all of our popular states in the region. Name me one that’s not happy.”

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Tucker.

Joe Biden’s Agenda Is Meant For America’s Unhappy Rich Ladies (Fox)

We’re told that Joe Biden is our president-elect and he will shuffle into the White House in January with something called a “mandate.” If that’s true, what exactly is he going to do with this mandate? That’s an interesting question, but almost no one is asking it. Instead, our news media is busy swarming Rudy Giuliani, a former mayor who hasn’t held public office in decades, because he has questions about some of the voting that took place last week. Therefore, he’s an imminent threat to the republic requiring blanket coverage. But whatever you do, do not cover the guy that you claim is president. The Biden people are fine with this, by the way. They don’t want to deal with the media either, so they’re not. On Tuesday, Ryan Lizza of Politico noticed “[D]iscouraging signs about the Biden team and press access so far.

“[N]o regular transition briefings, no readout of calls with foreign leaders … no open press access to the candidate and his people,” Lizza wrote. “This is a break with tradition.” Of course, it is a break with tradition and it’s worrisome, but you’re not allowed to notice it. Biden supporters immediately screamed at Ryan Lizza to shut up. So what exactly is going on behind this news blackout veiling Joe Biden from public view? Well, pretty much exactly what you expect: They are busy rewarding the forces of repression that made these election results possible. Guess who’s first in line? You guessed it, the tech monopolies. They did their job. They shutdown one side, protected the other.

And now it’s time for the reward. In one of his first acts as president elect, Joe Biden named a man called Ron Klain to be his chief of staff. Now, Klain worked for Biden before and is a close ally. That’s the story that you’ve read about why he got the job. But that’s not why he got the job. Ron Klain is also a lobbyist for Big Tech. Four years ago, he joined the executive council of Silicon Valley’s lobbying arm in Washington. Ron Klain was not chosen for his success as a public servant. We know that because last year, he acknowledged that the Obama administration, where he was a senior official, totally mishandled the swine flu pandemic, the one that came before this one.

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“Schiff, as he usually does when he moves his mouth, was lying..”

Biden, Media, CIA, Schiff: Biden Emails “Russian Disinformation” (Greenwald)

Congressman Adam Schiff, the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and, not coincidentally, the single most shameless pathological liar in the U.S. Congress by a good margin, appeared on CNN with Wolf Blitzer on October 16 to discuss The New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s emails. The CNN host asked him a rhetorical question embedded with baseless assumptions: “does it surprise you at all that this information Rudy Giuliani is peddling very well could be connected to some sort of Russian government disinformation campaign?” Schiff stated definitively that it is: “we know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin,” adding: “clearly, the origins of this whole smear are from the Kremlin, and the President is only too happy to have Kremlin help in amplifying it.”

Referencing Trump’s promotion of The New York Post reporting while at his White House desk, Schiff said: “there it is in the Oval Office: another wonderful propaganda coup for Vladimir Putin, seeing the President of the United States holding up a newspaper promoting Kremlin propaganda.” Schiff, as he usually does when he moves his mouth, was lying: exploiting CNN’s notorious willingness to allow Democratic officials to spread disinformation over its airwaves without the slightest challenge. Schiff claimed certainty about something for which there was and still is no evidence: that the Russians played a role in the procurement and publication of the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop.

As he also usually does when he publicly lies, Schiff was merely echoing the propaganda of current and former operatives of the CIA and other arms of the intelligence community who abuse their power to interfere in U.S. domestic politics: the very factions over which the Intelligence Committee run by Schiff is supposed to exercise oversight supervision, not serve as their parrot. During the same week as Schiff’s CNN appearance, as Politico reported, “more than 50 former senior intelligence officials signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son ‘has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.’”

In that letter from intelligence operatives about The New York Post story — signed by Obama’s former CIA chief John Brennan now of MSNBC (repeatedly caught lying), Obama’s former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper now of CNN (who got caught lying to the Senate about NSA domestic spying), Bush’s former NSA and CIA chief Micheal Hayden now of CNN (who served during 9/11 and the Iraq War), and dozens of other similar professional disinformation agents — the intelligence operatives announced “our view that the Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email issue,” adding “that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.”

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“The algorithm appears to subtract votes from one candidate and add them to the other candidate. It’s a feature, not a bug. Weird, a little bit.”

The Worm in the Machine (Jim Kunstler)

The avatars of good government, Joe Biden, and his righteous Democrats, seem a little bit spooked by the globe-of-silence enveloping Mr. Trump and his lawyers the past few days. The Dems’ narrative at this point, mid-game, is that… “the election was the most secure in the nation’s history” (The New York Times). Anything else is a “conspiracy theory.” Here’s what the Democrats don’t tell you: theories are subject to proof, and proof brings theories into compliance with reality, including, sometimes, the part about conspiracy. Such as a conspiracy to queer the recent election with vote tabulation software and other wizardries. I guess we’ll find out what can be proven, and that is all the president is attempting to do, like anybody with faith in the scientific method. In Oakland County, Michigan, for instance, comprising the northwest suburbs and exurbs of Detroit, the graph shows a mysterious bending of votes off a trend-line at a pretty clear break-point. Each blue square is a voter precinct.


Chart by Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai

The very same plotline is repeated in several other Michigan counties heavily trending for the president in early voting and then swooning mysteriously for Mr. Biden after a four-hour break in action. How to account for this strange occurrence? The worm in the machine, perhaps: a simple algorithm (i.e., set of coded instructions) embedded in the Dominion vote tabulation software — product of a company, to remind you, partially owned by Senator Feinstein’s husband, Richard C. Blum, and represented by lobbyist Nadeam Elshami, Nancy Pelosi’s former chief of staff. It was Mr. Elshami’s mission to visit state legislators around the country and persuade them to adopt (that is, purchase) the Dominion system. The algorithm appears to subtract votes from one candidate and add them to the other candidate. It’s a feature, not a bug. Weird, a little bit.


So, that’s one thing that remains to be proven. How did the algorithm work? Can it be isolated and described? Did its task leave digital footprints? Not all the software geniuses in the USA work for Silicon Valley. Some may be assisting Mr. Trump’s attorneys in figuring this out and constructing cases for the various courts. Since it takes more than a day-and-a-half to bring lawsuits, that may account for the Democrats’ rush to peremptorily discard such formal inquiries and just declare Mr. Biden the winner. Similar ballot tabulation doings show up in the Georgia vote, where a recount is underway, this time with observers and without four-hour mystery pauses. And then there is Pennsylvania.

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“Kissinger has killed a lot of friends of mine, beginning in Chile in 1973. He killed a lot of children who look like my children, in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. And he is a personal role model of Tony Blair, to whose incarceration for war crimes and crimes against humanity my own life is now dedicated.”

The Winner Of The Most Coveted Henry Kissinger Endorsement Is… Joe Biden (RT)

Nixon’s secretary of state and the arch realist of Washington has given his blessing to the former vice president. Let the bombs fall where they may… No matter what happens in the Supreme Court, Joe Biden will always have Henry KissingeThe oldest-living war criminal – Kissinger, not Biden – has made clear his preference for the oldest living senator (Biden claimed during the campaign he’d been in the Senate for 180 years) and perhaps come January the oldest ever president to take the oath. You may not share my religious beliefs, but I consider the continued sulphurous presence of Henry K proof of Satan’s existence on Earth. To my mind, no man since Hitler has more blood on his hands than Kissinger. But I must declare an interest.

Kissinger has killed a lot of friends of mine, beginning in Chile in 1973. He killed a lot of children who look like my children, in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. And he is a personal role model of Tony Blair, to whose incarceration for war crimes and crimes against humanity my own life is now dedicated. From the killing fields of Indo-China, through the years of living dangerously in Suharto’s Indonesia, to the ruins of La Moneda and corpse of Salvador Allende, and to the ghost city of Quneitra in Syria. There is, in fact, no operating theatre of bloody colonialism since the 1960s in which he hasn’t been so steeped in blood that a commemorative statue wouldn’t have been in order. And he’s backed Biden. The “vulgarity” of Donald J. Trump was just TOO much for Henry K.

To Business Insider, “the most famous Secretary of State the US has had” revealed “I like Joe Biden,” whom he described as “thoughtful and moderate.” Just like himself, in fact. When Biden bombs it will be with regret rather than relish. They will be humanitarian bombs, just like Barack O’Bomber’s were. That there will be rather more of them, and in fresh countries too, is something, dear reader, you will have to prepare yourself for. There will be no “Muslim ban,” just the continuation of Muslim-bombing. Including a resumption of Muslim-bombing in the likes of Syria. But these bombers, at least, will be adorned with Black Lives Matter paraphernalia and maybe the rainbow flag painted on their tail-fins for good measure.

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“These are two radically different messages in direct opposition to each other, and the parties are no longer “two sides of the same coin..“

A Breakdown Of This Strange Moment In US History (SCF)

The Old Russian joke that a revolution could “never happen in America because there are no U.S. Embassies in Washington” has now become obsolete. The media, including even the supposedly conservative Fox News, has completely and totally given the election to Biden despite many irregularities. Not to mention, the fact that as these words are being typed – the election is not officially over. If there is one key element to a Color Revolution that must be in place for success it is control of the media. If every TV channel and news site says candidate X is the winner, then he has won regardless of votes and regardless of how many people still use said dinosaur media. They ultimately cast the big final ballot.

The rampant tampering and falsification witnessed (and often self filmed by the perpetrators) during the election looked like something you would expect to see in a “backwards third world hellhole” type of country. The manipulation was rampant, blatant and primitive. This fact can and should be used by the nations at odds with America (Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, Syria, etc.) in perpetuity as proof that the U.S. never had, nor should have, some sort of democracy-based moral authority over anyone else. America’s own Color Revolution delegitimizes any attempts to spread regime change via media elsewhere across the globe. The Dynamic between the Republicans and Democrats has changed forever. The Dynamic between the Republicans and Democrats has changed forever.

Donald Trump has changed the Republican Party, from the party of Businessmen and a defensive Upper Middleclass with a sprinkling of Social Conservatism speaking almost exclusively to a White audience into a populist party that offers a Right Wing emotional vision to the multi-ethnic America that we live in today. The shift in concept of the Republican Party is so severe that Trump’s influence has had the same or maybe even a greater effect that “The Southern Strategy” ever did. Around ten or fifteen years ago it looked like America would evolve into a one-party state due to demographics and the inability of Republicans to appeal to non-Whites. If polls can be trusted, at the very least Trump has doubled the amount of Black Americans who voted for him last time and was able to persuade 1/3 of Latinos to vote for him despite building “The Wall”.

Looking back on the 2016 election it is easy to see these huge gains, in groups that the Democrats took for granted as “theirs”. In contrast to Trump’s vision of a pro-Consitution, somewhat Libertarian populous party the Democrats have doubled down on hardcore Progressive positions. If the Dems used to represent the working man in a White vs. Blue collar America battle, they have now shifted over to being a Postmodernist circus of race, gender and sexual orientation baiting with a sprinkle of environmentalism via taxation as icing on the cake. These are two radically different messages in direct opposition to each other, and the parties are no longer “two sides of the same coin”, being two slightly different takes on the Liberalism laid down by the Founding Fathers. This is probably why things have gotten so unusually ugly, American politics may have become truly “winner take all”.

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“I have great reservations over a justice speaking on issues that are likely to come before him on the Court.”

Justice Alito Speaks Against Pandemic Restrictions, Other Controversies (Turley)

Justice Sam Alito is making headlines after his speech last night as the keynote at this year’s all-virtual Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention. Alito slammed pandemic measures and attacks on free speech in his remarks to the Convention, including the crackdown on “unfashionable views” in our society. I happen to agree with some of his points, but I have great reservations over a justice speaking on issues that are likely to come before him on the Court. Indeed, I have long been a critic of the Supreme Court justices engaging in public appearances where they hold forth on contemporary issues. I have been particularly critical of the late Justice Antonin Scalia and Associated Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who clearly relished appearances before ideologically supportive groups.

Justice Alito addressed attacks on religious liberty and free speech, including citing past cases and disputes before the Court. He also declared “The Covid crisis has highlighted constitutional fault lines” in attacking such rights. Pandemic limits are the subject of petitions before the Court as well as major cases working through the federal system. Alito also launched into liberals who he views as threatening religious rights, noting that “[i]n certain corners, religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored right.” Alito attacked the Obama administration’s “ protracted campaign” and “unrelenting attack” against the Little Sisters of the Poor.” He also criticized a Washington State for requiring pharmacies to provide emergency contraception. He maintained that such emergency contraception “destroys an embryo after fertilization.”

All of those issues have been and will again be before the Court. Indeed, as Alito was making these ill-considered comments, the Catholic Church was coming before his Court in these very issues. There are a number of cases on the docket and pending review that include issues raised by Alito in his public remarks. Those litigants are entitled to justices who are not speaking publicly (directly or indirectly) on the merits of such claims. [..] It is worth noting that many liberals are objecting to Alito’s speech despite celebrating even more alarming public speeches by Justice Ginsburg during his life. Throughout her career, Justice Ginsburg triggered controversies over public comments where she joked that she would move to New Zealand if Donald Trump is elected. Ginsburg apologized for that controversy. While she expressed “regret” in that instance, it did not deter Ginsburg in continuing to speak publicly and hold forth on contemporary issues. There were speeches that electrified the left and built her persona as the “Notorious RBG.”

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Newsflash: it’s not his fault.

Fauci’s New COVID19 Guidance: ‘Do What You’re Told’ (NYP)

Dr. Anthony Fauci has some new coronavirus guidance: “Do what you’re told.” In an interview Thursday, the coronavirus task force member and infectious disease expert pushed back on the notion that scientists were “authoritarian” for promoting strict lockdowns and social distancing measures. But the 79-year-old suggested the American spirit of independence had gotten in the way and the nation needed to follow their orders, whether they liked it or not. “I was talking with my UK colleagues who are saying the UK is similar to where we are now, because each of our countries have that independent spirit,” Fauci said during a panel with other experts in Washington, DC.

“I can understand that, but now is the time to do what you’re told,” he said, as first reported by CNBC. The longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has repeatedly clashed with President Trump and his administration, who have dismissed him as “a bit of an alarmist” amid the pandemic. Fauci said Thursday it was unfortunate that America’s scientists had been “lumped into politics” and that people were unwilling to follow their guidance because society was so “divisive.” “All of a sudden, science gets caught in a lot of this divisiveness,” he told the audience.

It comes as public health officials and the Trump administration grapple with how to combat new record numbers of daily coronavirus infections. Daily US cases topped 150,000 for the first time Wednesday, while hospitalizations have also hit another all-time high. Fauci said the nation could avoid another round of economically devastating lockdowns if people simply washed their hands, wore a mask and remained socially distant. “It sounds simple in the context of this ominous outbreak, but in fact we can turn it around,” he said.

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“..revenues from tests are likely not bogus & very consistent.“

Elon Musk Says He Tested Positive & Negative For COVID19 In Same Day (RT)

Futurist entrepreneur Elon Musk has expressed doubts about the accuracy of coronavirus tests, after claiming to have been both diagnosed and cleared of the disease on the same day. The SpaceX and Tesla founder wrote on Twitter that he had been administered four tests for the virus over a 24-hour period, leading to contradictory results. “Two tests came back negative, two came back positive. Same machine, same test, same nurse. Rapid antigen test from BD,” Musk said. The tweet sparked a heated debate on social media, with some accusing the billionaire businessman of being “irresponsible” by suggesting that Covid-19 tests are unreliable.

However, Musk paid no attention to the criticism and expressed further skepticism about the testing process in follow-messages. One Twitter user speculated that Musk’s apparent false-positive illustrates why countries are seeing “spikes” of the disease, to which the Tesla CEO responded: “If it’s happening to me, it’s happening to others.” The billionaire also agreed with a comment that noted that “revenues from tests are likely not bogus & very consistent.” Musk said he was taking polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests from separate labs and that the results would be ready in about a day. He explained that he had symptoms of a “typical cold” but was otherwise not exhibiting any health problems purportedly linked to Covid-19.

The 49-year-old has been an outspoken critic of government response to the spread of the virus. Previously, he denounced lockdown policies adopted in countries around the world, arguing that only at-risk people should quarantine “until the storm passes.” He also said that neither he nor his family will likely take future coronavirus vaccines once they become available, saying that the response to the pandemic has “diminished [his] faith in humanity.”

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D614G

Coronavirus Mutation May Be Achilles Heel For Vaccines To Target (RT)

A new study has found that the very mutation which allowed SARS-CoV-2 to spread so far and wide among the human population may also be an Achilles heel for future vaccines to target. One of the latest strains of coronavirus, and currently the most common in the world, is called D614G. Through tests on hamsters, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered that this particular strain replicates faster and spreads more easily than the original variant, which emerged in China at the beginning of the pandemic. D614G outcompetes and outgrows its Chinese ancestral strain by about 10-fold, courtesy of its spike protein’s enhanced infiltration ability, which allows the virus easy access to human cells.

According to a recent study published on November 12, the disease caused by D614G was found to spread faster but didn’t result in more severe cases, while also being slightly more sensitive to medication including antibody treatments. Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a virologist on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, ran a series of experiments using the original and mutated variants of the coronavirus on hamsters, to study both the severity of resulting symptoms after infection and the infectiousness of individual strains. Two groups of hamsters were inoculated with each strain of the virus, and then uninfected animals were placed in nearby cages, with shared air supply. The mutant virus spread to six of the eight newly introduced hamsters within two days, while the original virus strain hadn’t transmitted to any hamsters by day two but spread to the entire group by day four, highlighting the different pace of infection.

Now, however, researchers suspect that this increased infectiousness may in fact be a double-edged sword which could prove to be coronavirus’ undoing. The D614G mutation opens a small access port on the tip of one of the coronavirus crown’s spikes, increasing the rate of infection but leaving the virus core exposed – easy pickings for antibodies, such as the ones contained in the current generation of vaccines. Ralph Baric, professor of epidemiology at the UNC-Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health, who was previously involved in the development of the remdesivir antiviral drug, says that the unpredictability of coronavirus mutations necessitates ongoing study. He warned that, especially in light of the newly discovered mink SARS-CoV-2 cluster 5 variant in Denmark, studies into the exact mechanics of each mutation are necessary to maximize public health.

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